I know Eric Bryant through our participation together with the Origins Project. On his blog, Eric has been doing a series of teleseminars with church leaders and thinkers. On June 1 (3-4pm Central) he will be interviewing me live about The Divine Commodity. The teleseminar is free, but you need to sign up in advance to participate.

SIGN UP HERE for this free, live teleseminar.  

Eric’s teleseminars are similar to conference calls where you can dail in and listen/interact live, or you may listen online via live streaming audio. By signing up you can also submit questions to Eric and me to answer during the call. Check out other recent teleseminars on Eric’s blog.

Christians will often say, “We’re all sinners.” But the way we operate often communicates something else. Within church communities there is a tendency to see those with obvious addictions or vices as among the “seriously sinful.” Others may see themselves as “merely theologically sinful.” For them sin is a doctrinal concept rather than a daily battle for survival.

In Luke 7 a “seriously sinful” prostitute encounters Jesus at the home of Simon, a “merely thologically sinful” Pharisee. The scene forces us to acknowledge the way we categorize people to elevate ourselves, and the dangers of remaining blind to our own evil. Do you really believe “we are all sinners”? Let’s find out.

Listen now. No Perfect People Allowed

A political dissident is arrested for leading a movement that threatens the stability of a region. He is ambushed and apprehended by his enemies, detained without a public trail, and tortured by soldiers at the command of their political leaders.

No, I’m not describing Kalid Sheikh Mohammad or any other detainee held at the prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. I’m speaking of Jesus of Nazareth. The fact that Christians draw their faith, life, and identity from a Messiah who was the victim of political torture seems ironic in light of new research by the Pew Forum that indicates 62 percent of white evangelicals believe torture of suspected terrorists is “often” or “sometimes” justified. The research shows that people who attend church regularly were more likely to rationalize torture than…

It’s not easy being green…especially if you’re an evangelical.

Richard Cizik was ousted from the leadership of the National Association of Evangelicals for his vocal support of environmental efforts, what many Christians call “creation care.” Now Cizik finds himself a very popular figure being invited to many conferences and speaking to the younger generation of Christians who take environmental issues like global warming very seriously.

But does Cizik’s departure from the NAE represent the failure or the future of evangelicalism?

There is a battle going on to define 21st century Christianity in North America. Will it continue to be a block whose moral agenda is limited to issued related to sexual/reproductive ethics: abortion, same-sex marriage, and the preservation fo the Western nuclear family? Or will evangelicals embrace a wider moral agenda…

News sites have been buzzing with the results of a Pew survey finding that those who attend church most regularly are also the most likely to say torture of terrorist suspects is “sometimes” or “often” justified. My colleague at Christianity Today, David Neff, has a well written post on the CT blog analyzing the data. Here’s an excerpt:

As more and more details have emerged about U.S. government use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” (which our own government has called “torture” at other times), the debate has been shaped by the questions, “Does it work?” and “Did it work?” In my opinion, the picture emerging from the evidence suggests that not enough attention was paid to what we did know about effective interrogation before we rushed into the use of…